I was going to be in Hungary over a weekend, being there for an unusually-long nine business days due to a couple of big projects I was responsible for. My previous two trips to Debrecen, in October and November 2009, were not the most fun of trips and didn’t leave me with happy memories of the place. Therefore, I couldn’t imagine staying there by myself for the weekend; I had to get out. But where to go?
I felt I needed to completely get out of Hungary, try my hand at a new culture and get a new travel challenge. Not that getting around Hungary is easy but I know enough of the language and the culture to not feel worried in most travel-related situations. Time to shake things up and get out of the country.
If you look at a map of Eastern Europe, you’ll see that Eastern Hungary is quite close to Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia. Here’s a map for ya:
http://www.neiu.edu/~ajmichae/387/hyperlinks/hyperlink%20map/slovakia.gif
A work colleague recommended I visit Transylvania which would have been great except that a) it would have required 8-9 hours on a train to get there and b) would not have felt right being there without Jennifer. To use a baseball metaphor, I didn’t need to hit a home run, just get on base. There are no trains to the Ukraine and some co-workers told me that Romania is a total culture shock from Hungary so that left Slovakia. Hey, it’s part of the European Union so it shouldn’t be a big change. Besides, part of it used to be part of Hungary though apparently a lot of Hungarians still resent that they lost it after World War I (as well as parts of Romania, Serbia, Croatia and the Ukraine). I settled on the town of Košice (koh-sheetz-ay) since I could get there by train in about three hours. Perfect.
If you’re curious, here’s the website I used for the train schedules:
http://elvira.mav-start.hu/elvira.dll/xslms/uf
Košice is a town of over 200,000 people but has a touristy center and is nestled in a valley between hills of a height I wasn’t sure of but anything is better than the flat plain where Debrecen lies.
The train ride would be around three hours total and would require switching trains in Miskolcs (pronounced Meesh-koltz), Hungary. I could leave at 8am and be in Košice by 11, just in time for a nice little lunch and a solid afternoon of wandering around. That way I didn’t have to hurry to leave work on Friday and could spend a leisurely Friday evening playing soccer with my buddy Misi and the Under-20 soccer team he coaches.
The next morning at 7:15 I caught a cab down to the train station and waited patiently for my train. I know the drill now for making sure I’m on the right one (no more late night excursions to Monor and Szolnok for me!) and had no problem finding my proper seat. I would only have nine minutes to get to the proper platform in Miskolcs to catch the train to Košice but I’d been assured the trains run on time so there wouldn’t be a problem. Too bad nobody told the people running my train as we rolled into Miskolcs 25 minutes late...
I walked through the Miskolcs station looking for my train in case it was late but nope, it had already departed. Wonderful. I wondered why the ticket people in Debrecen had sold me a voucher for a train ticket to Košice at any time rather than a ticket for that specific train (not that was the exact reason but you never know). I went to the ticket counter and confirmed what I already knew: the next train to Košice wouldn’t leave until 7pm or so that night. Great.
Košice is only an hour or so away from Miskolcs; maybe I could catch a bus, I thought. I went outside to get a cab to the bus station, thinking that would be my ticket. There were several cabs outside and the driver of the nearest, a mustachioed gent in his 50s, started to take my bags when I explained to him in my wonderful combination of Hungarian and body gestures that I had missed my train and was going to the bus station to get to Košice. When he heard I was going to Košice (Kassa in Hungarian, which many still use) his ears perked up. He said he could take me there for sixty euros, about $80. I explained that no, I wanted to take the bus. He pointed at his watch and shook his head, indicating the next bus wouldn’t leave until quite late. Normally I’m very suspicious of cab drivers and I didn’t completely trust this guy but I just motioned to him that I needed to go sit on a nearby bench and think.
So I thought. NI could cover the fifty euros no problem but I hate to possibly waste money. I thought about it. Even if I were to catch a bus that left at say, noon, I would lose a couple of precious hours in Košice. And it’s more likely there wouldn’t be a bus leaving soon anyway. Hmm...
As I was pondering my circumstances (I won’t say predicament because, well, I was getting to spend a weekend somewhere in Europe, even if it was Miskolcs), the same cab driver approached me again (there weren’t very many people needing cabs that day). This time he didn’t say anything but instead just held out his cell phone. On the viewscreen all I saw was ‘50’. Fifty euros, 65 dollars. That was a bit better. I pointed at my head and then my wrist indicating I still needed time to think though I had already made my decision; screw it, I was taking the cab. I’d get there much faster, the company could cover it and if he was talkative I might learn a few things. Even if the cost would be a bit prohibitive I was staying in a hotel that cost half the price of the standard NI hotel; the company could throw me a bone. I sat for another minute just because and then wandered over to him with a smile on my face, indicating to him that I would be utilizing his services to get me to my destination. 45 I told him, typing it into his cell phone. He looked at me and shook his head. 50. I had already gotten him down by ten and who am I to try to nickel and dime the guy, especially since that kind of money would only get you ten miles in Paris. I smiled at him and nodded. Let’s go, vato.
We hit the road in his little compact car, stopping at an Auchan hypermarket for gas. I was glad to be back in action, being only perhaps 45 minutes to an hour behind schedule. The cab was hot because I couldn’t roll down the passenger side window, he didn’t have a/c and it was probably 95 degrees. I compensated by pushing my seat as far back as it would go and leaning back East Austin-style so I could catch the breeze whooshing through the back passenger side window. We ‘talked’ for probably twenty minutes, using the combination of Hungarian, German and gestures to discuss flooding in the region, the road to Košice, the local airport and other easy topics. He also helped me remember how to count to ten in German, getting so engrossed in it he missed the road we had to turn on and having to backtrack a mile or so. I really, really like that type of cab driver and I was feeling pretty good.
The drive to Košice took around an hour and was fairly uneventful, rolling over hills and past tons of farmland, half of which was planted with sunflowers (which I later found out are used for sunflower seed oil). The one notable sight was the border checkpoint, unused since Slovakia and Hungary both joined the European Union in 2004. It’s not anything like the toll booth you’d expect but instead a big underpass, forcing the car to go underneath a wide one- to two-story building. It didn’t seem like either Hungary or Slovakia wanted to invest in keeping it up and as we passed underneath the decrepit-looking structure I felt a little saddened. Then again, this being Eastern Europe and formerly Communist, it might have always looked that way.
We rolled into Košice and it felt a little like driving through Hearne, Texas, on Highway 6, in that you’re driving through an industrial-type looking area on a four-lane road to get into town. My cab driver didn’t know where my hotel was but I had a map (again, thanks to Google Maps) and was very confident that if he could get me to the train station I could get us to the hotel. As luck would have it, I’d chosen a hotel that had signs pointed us where to go and everything so I directed the cab driver myself to get there. We parked in front of the Hotel-Restaurant Dália, I paid the fifty euro and bid him good day. Here’s the website for the hotel: http://www.hoteldalia.sk/
I chose the Hotel-Restaurant Dália because it was downtown, right by a big park and had air conditioning. Did I mention that Eastern Europe was going through a heat wave about then with daytime temperatures in the mid- to high-90s? That wouldn’t have been so bad except that air conditioning is luxury and not worth the expense for these people since summers usually aren’t that hot for that long. My hotel in Debrecen didn’t have air conditioning but was neat enough that I didn’t mind (I like to stay off the beaten track if I can) and plus I was only there in the late evenings anyway. Of course Eastern Europe also has humidity, though not quite swamp-level (i.e. Houston) but breezes are difficult to come by (unlike in, say, Austin). Even the factory in Debrecen keeps the a/c turned low so that it’s probably 80 degrees in there and certain meeting rooms with sun-facing windows get uncomfortably hot. So anyway, I made sure that the hotel in Košice would have air conditioning.
Anyway, upon arrival I found I had a slight problem. I consider myself a seasoned traveler these days but for the love of God I could not find my way into the hotel. There was an outer wall around part of the hotel with an iron gate big enough for vehicles and a smaller iron gate which was obviously for people but I couldn’t open it. I pushed. Nothing. I pulled. Nothing. I tried turning what looked to be a knob. Nothing. There were people eating in a courtyard just inside and I was concerned about looking like a complete idiot so I backed up and stood unobserved against the wall, contemplating what to do. I took a walk around to the other side but there were no doors there. I walked back around to the personnel gate, which did have a small sign for the hotel above it, stood against the wall again and thought “Here I am in scenic Slovakia trying to get my relaxing weekend moving forward and man it’s friggin’ hot out here but I can’t figure out how to get into my hotel, argh!” No one was going in or out so I couldn’t even sneak in. The one option left was to push a little unobtrusive button with a little camera above it which I presumed to be for security. That had to be it but it still felt silly going and pressing the button.
The receptionist inside must have been watching me through the camera because a split second after I hit the button I heard a low buzz. I looked at the gate and pushed it. Of course, it eased open. Friggin’ Europe. That was one of those situations where yes, you’re smart and everything but when you encounter something that’s commonplace for Europeans but not for you you’re just perplexed as to what to do and feel silly trying things. Other examples include having to put your room entry card into a slot near the door inside your room so that you can turn the lights on, the fact that bottles of water with blue labels are carbonated while ones with pink aren’t and that there are no turnstiles to get on the Budapest subway but also no marked places to buy a ticket. Whatever, I was in.
I was so glad to have reached my destination I didn’t care that the receptionist spoke English extremely well. I tried using a couple of Slovakian words but ended up butchering them so I gave it up. She gave me my room key and I wandered down a hot hallway that had the lights on motion sensors (kind of creepy but definitely energy-saving) to my room. It was compact but did have air conditioning. Hallelujah!
After an hour of unpacking and checking e-mail, I wandered out onto the streets of Košice looking to experience Slovakian culture and, more importantly, find something to eat. It was really, really hot. Usually when I get to wander around foreign locales I’m in reasonably cool weather that doesn’t quite require a jacket. Wandering around when I was certain to break into a sweat was something new. Heck, even when I was in New Orleans it was in March. What the heck do you do when you’re trying to blend in but you’re sweating like a stuck pig? You shrug your shoulders and go about your business. At least, that’s what I did.
I passed by two big pools in the big park by the hotel. Everybody and their grandmother in Košice was either there or walking there as I, sweating like crazy, was walking in the opposite direction. They definitely had the right idea but I hadn’t brought a swimsuit and being by myself in a crowded, social place like that is not a good idea. I picked up my chin and continued striding forward.
I found a little restaurant with an outdoor, shaded patio that had almost no one there and took a table. I tried using my few Slovakian words, provided to me by the one guy at the Debrecen factory who can apparently speak Slovakian, but had such trouble with them and was getting weird glances from the waiter that I switched to using Hungarian. That worked much better and I was able to order, yes, gyros. Thank goodness I like gyros because you can get them everywhere. There were other things on the menu but it wasn’t in English so I had to order something I could understand.
After eating, I stopped in a nearby grocery store and bought a big honkin’ bottle of water. It wouldn’t do to pass out on the streets of Košice from dehydration, after all. I then proceeded to the scenic downtown.
By the way, I mapped the walk here, just because I enjoy that sort of thing but it also gives me the mileage (5.93 miles total):
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=118415557892131827636.0004761ea942254bad9cc
The downtown area is cute but small. It’s anchored by a rather large Cathedral, Anglican I think (I almost never use tourbooks for these occasions so I’m ignorant) and had several smaller churches as well. The big church allows you, by paying about 0.90 Euros, to walk up to the top of one of the towers. For some reason I was trying to communicate with the ticket lady in Slovakian and then in Hungarian, neither of which were working. When we were to the point of exasperation she looked at me and said ‘English?’ Oh yeah, I’d literally forgotten that I spoke English. She then launched into an obviously well-rehearsed spiel about the number of steps, when the tower was built, etc. I thanked her in English and proceeded up the stairs.
I love these old towers. I’ve been in one in Eger, Hungary and another in Munich. They’re thin and narrow, being built for by and for people shorter than we typically are today. They’re dark and crumbling in some places. But they’re not hot tourist attractions so you don’t have to deal with crowds (and in the tight spaces that wouldn’t be good anyway). This particular tower was a tricky enough spiral staircase that I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone over fifty.
The top provided a beautiful 360-degree view of Košice and the surrounding hills as well as, almost as beautifully, the tiled church roof and its other towers. As a bonus, a strong wind made the heat much more bearable. Having the whole place to myself, I was up there for probably fifteen minutes.
The next place to go was an underground area where the old city walls had been dug up. I’ve never understood how things get covered in dirt over time, like, why do we have to excavate old cities, why aren’t they just there? The pyramids in Egypt and the Parthenon never have been covered over, what gives? Anyway, the city walls were kind of neat but it was almost neater to get out of the sun again, eh.
The whole time I was in the downtown area I could hear music. The first thing I heard sounded like the ‘Chariots of Fire’ music. Then I’d hear other songs that were familiar but I couldn’t quite place, all without vocals. After visiting the walls, I finally figured out what it was: a ton of fountain jets that were timed to the music playing. I’m not going to bother explaining it to you. Just watch the video through the magic of the internets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeIJDyzBOK0
I sat there for maybe 25 minutes, just soaking it in, thinking, “Holy schnikes, I’m halfway around the world sitting in a random city watching a fountain synchronized to a disco song by Donna Summer.” I like those types of feelings. It helped that apparently that day, a Saturday, was wedding picture day in central Košice as I saw three different couples posing for photos, one of them at the fountain.
That reminds me, I am now to the point where I don’t mind hearing American music over in Europe anymore. I used to be annoyed and now I’m just amused, especially when I hear somewhat vulgar American songs being played in grocery stores. Every trip there is a new pop sensation being played all the time. This trip there were two: Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. The three most popular songs by far were, if you’re interested, these:
Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbPCtwIQ63I
(having the lyrics helps non-English speakers, eh)
Ke$ha – Tik Tok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6XpLQM2Cs
Lady Gaga – Alejandro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crYDOdZ2LC4
After the fountain, I meandered northwest through the city, past faceless twenty-story apartment buildings and a rundown streetcar line searching for hills where walking is always more interesting and, the hope was, if I got high enough, cooler temperatures.
I found them alright, but not how I’d hoped. After wandering past a hillside church, a playground and a neighborhood or two, I found myself down a small lane that felt like it was out in the countryside although it was still within view of the city. I was beyond even where the buses went and I was content, trying to make a loop on the side of the hill and come back down into town from a different direction. I was beyond the edges of the map the hotel receptionist had provided to me. At some point, I suspected that I was on a dead end road as there was almost no traffic. To confirm, I asked for help from a guy working in his ‘yard’.
Me: Ne vie Slovensky (I don’t speak Slovakian). Magyarul? (Hungarian?)
Man: (Looking at me confused)
Me: Umm...(points down the road and makes a walking motion with hands)
Man: Košice?
Me: Igen (yes in Hungarian)
Man: Sklkzmy tyzkrwmlk pdzklrhzz (points back the way I came)
Me: Oh. Dakujem ('thank you' in Slovakian but I butchered it)
I have to remark that the guy had a shirt on. When your house has no air conditioning and you want to work outside in Slovakia, you don’t wear a shirt or, if you’re a woman, you walk out in a bathing suit. At least, I think the few bikinis I saw were bathing suits. Anyway, I started walking back the way I came when it unexpectedly started to rain. I mean unexpectedly as the sky was mostly clear and I hadn’t heard any thunder or anything. Next thing I knew I was standing underneath a tree the size of a fig tree that barely overhung the road, waiting for the downpour to stop. I wasn’t too concerned. I would get a bit wet but not too badly and, since the storm had come upon me so suddenly it must be small and moving fast and would soon be over.
Nope. I stood under that tree for maybe fifteen minutes, all the while watching the potholes in the road fill up with water. All the while the rain became heavier and heavier. Not only that but it was thundering like you wouldn’t believe. Remember being taught that you could tell how far away lightning is by counting the seconds from the flash until you heard thunder? Well, I had nothing else to do so I counted from four miles to having it be almost on top of me. And it was loud!!!! The one consolation was that the sky wasn’t pitch black. Still, it made it a little scary but still somewhat comical, particularly since I had an umbrella in my room.
Eventually the lightning moved a little further away which was nice but the rain wasn’t letting up at all. Finally, when the potholes were all full of water, there were no signs of the rain abating and I figured I was about as wet as I could get, I started down the road to try to find some better shelter.
No luck in that either. Not only that but it began to hail. At least it was only small hail, less than golf ball sized but bigger than peas, and only lasted a minute. Still, I could only think “This is perfect.” After walking for ten minutes and becoming thoroughly drenched, I found slight shelter in a carport that stuck out over someone’s gate. I stayed there for ten minutes facing the peoples’ driveway and house allowing only my backside to get wet. Why would I do that? Because I realized I needed to protect my digital camera and cell phone. Before I left my tree shelter, I had put them both in the plastic shopping bag my bottle of water came in and tucked the bag up under my shirt, hoping that would protect them. I’d find out when I got back to the hotel what the damage was. Everything else I could deal with, knowing I’d look foolish getting back to my hotel but washing it all away with a nice hot bath. Also that it would make a good story. But potentially losing a cell phone and digital camera (and the photos I’d already taken) made things a bit more serious. Sigh. The rain kept up and I became tired of my shelter so I walked down the road ¼ of a mile and found a carport with no gate in front of it (though there was a van crammed in it). Still, I could finally wait out the storm as long as the person in the house didn’t come outside and yell at me in Slovakian. I figured if anybody was watching me from inside they could only feel sorry for the poor foreigner who had been caught unprepared in a crazy summer thunderstorm.
Finally, after what must have been at least forty minutes of rain, it started to let up. The main sign of it letting up was the presence of Slovakians with umbrellas wandering the streets. Drenched to the skin, slightly cold and quite sheepish, I emerged from the carport and trudged back to my hotel. No one looked at me strangely on the way back but thankfully I didn’t pass too many people. The storm had been very bad though; one street that I had walked down on the way out of town had a large number of fallen limbs and even whole trees. Yeesh. I arrived back at the hotel, explained to the mildy shocked receptionist that I was an idiot, went to my room and took a nice long bath.
After the bath, I realized that the only clean clothes I had were a pair of dress slacks and dress shirt. Everything else was actually being laundered by Slovakians from the hotel and I wouldn’t get them back until the next day. Tired and not wanting to feel embarassed, I stayed in the hotel room and didn’t go out, having a webcam chat with Jennifer and a dinner of trail mix and granola bars. I could have easily gone to the hotel restaurant but I felt that would still be too much. I was not, however, depressed and still felt that my trip to Košice was a good one, accomplishing my goals of getting out of Hungary and and finding new, non-work-related challenges.
The next morning, wearing my dressy clothes, I checked out of the hotel at 10am (the latest check-out time) and had a nice breakfast from their buffet. I got my clothes back, nicely folded but ever-so-slightly damp as most Europeans don’t seem to use clothes dryers. No matter, after yesterday’s imbroglio they were dry enough for me. I gleefully changed into jeans (I had left all my shorts in the US) and a clean shirt, left my luggage at the front desk and proceeded to walk out the front door with my umbrella. “You know it’s supposed to rain again today” said the receptionist, the same one who had been there yesterday. “I know,” I said as I held up my umbrella. “I’ll either be back very soon or a long time from now.” I stepped outside just as it began to rain. ‘I’m unstoppable; I have an umbrella today,’ I thought to myself. I made it halfway down the street before thinking that, no, it would be stupid to venture out again into the rain, even with an umbrella. I turned around, hit the button to let me in and took a seat under a big awning on the empty restaurant patio. And what I did was sit for 30-45 minutes and just watch the rain. It was quite relaxing really. In fact, I even saw a couple of people running out to their cars in the rain and thought to myself how great it was that I was nice and dry. One of the waiters came outside after fifteen minutes to check on me, perhaps thinking I thought that I could order something. I gave him a smile and a thumbs-up and he walked away.
I wasn’t in a hurry as my train wasn’t supposed to leave until 6. However, I would again only have a nine minute layover and, even though I could catch another train two hours afterward, I didn’t want to mess with it. I would instead take another cab, hopefully for fifty euros or less.
After the rain dissipated, I started walking with the goal of seeing the Hornád River which runs right through the middle of town and was not far away from my hotel. It took me about a half hour to reach it, passing by the bus station first to see if any buses were going to Miskolcs. There were none except for another late evening bus. Yep, it’d be a cab again for me.
The Hornád is not a big river at all and not very scenic either, at least not in Košice. I had to walk on a sidewalk besides a freeway to see it but see it I did. I was debating whether to go to the other side of the river and try to make a big loop going north when it began to drizzle. Taking that as a sign to cut the walk short, I went back to the city center for a little while, checking out the churches and the musical fountain again before going by the Tesco (big supermarket) and asking the cab drivers there how much it would be to go to Miskolcs. They shrugged and said fifty euros. Excellent. I went back to the hotel, had a nice lunch in the restaurant (although I had to wait 30 minutes for Carpathian Rolls even though there was almost no one else there) and asked the receptionist how much a cab to Miskolcs would cost, seeing if she could do better than the Tesco guys. She said 100 euro and looked at me like I was crazy when I told her about the fifty I’d been offered. I walked over to Tesco with my luggage and got in a cab bound for Miskolcs. I didn’t even try to negotiate.
My cab driver was a thin Slovakian guy who smoked but compensated for it by playing Slovakian rock music and having windows that rolled down. His only problem was that he didn’t know where the train station in Miskolcs was. He stopped and asked several people including a group of men at a gas station, patrons of a McDonald’s and even two cops where it was but, due to his inability to communicate (he spoke Slovakian, they spoke Hungarian) he couldn’t get us there. Finally, I had to step in. While he was asking a lady in a yellow car next to us at a traffic light, I took over.
Taxi Driver: #(&%#( (&!@# Slovak?!
Lady: (shrugging her shoulders)
Me: Nem tudok magyarul (I don’t speak Hungarian)! Vasútallomás (train station)?
Lady: (points with her arm indicating we need to take a right, cutting in front of her when the light turns green)
And actually the lady passed us and led us just about to the train station. My poor cab driver. The fifty euros didn’t seem as worth it when it took us an extra thirty minutes to get there. Thankfully, I wasn’t in a hurry because I knew the next train wouldn’t be for an hour and a half anyway. When we pulled up to the train station, who did we see but my cab driver from the day before! I met his eyes and we smiled at each other. After I paid my now quite cranky Slovakian driver, I showed the Miskolcs driver my receipt to show that the price was the same coming back as going. I think he would have liked to have taken me back for my return trip but that would have been much more difficult for me and wouldn’t have saved either time or money. We shook hands and I went into the train station.
My train was on time, I was on the proper platform to catch it and found my seat. I’ve got this train thing down. The only damper on my day was getting completely ripped off by my taxi driver in Debrecen who insisted that the fare was so exorbitantly expensive because it was on a Sunday. “Vasarnap, Vasarnap, Vasarnap!” (Sunday, Sunday, Sunday) he kept repeating. I felt especially grated because we had been having a good Hungarian/gesture conversation. What counts as ripped off? A five dollar fare became a ten dollar fare. Not much you say but I felt very angry about it. I still paid him, vowing to be more vigilant next time I had a cab from a suspect cab company (I could have called for one from the company NI uses but didn’t feel it was necessary and didn’t want to wait).
Anyway, that was my weekend in Košice. Overall the business part of my trip went rather well and I was able to spend several evenings going out to eat with work associates, playing sand volleyball, playing soccer, eating ghoulash with my buddy Misi’s family (all non-English speakers) and taking two US Customs agents out to dinner on two consecutive nights. It was good to be back but as always it stunk to be away from Jennifer and the kid. Anyway, as always, thanks for reading and sharing my travels with me.
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